


Do What We Must

by cardiganfucker



Series: Your Words Have Guided [1]
Category: Portal (Video Game), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Chell - Freeform, Douglas Rattmann, Gen, JiM - Freeform, Portal 2 - Freeform, Ratman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-03
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:43:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardiganfucker/pseuds/cardiganfucker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is Rattmann. John is Chell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do What We Must

**Author's Note:**

> It's probably best if you have seen both games and read the 'Lab Rat' comic that ties Portal and Portal 2 together.

“Hello and again welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one. Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper. Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of the enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur. For your own safety, and the safety of others, please refrain from-“

John woke up breathing hard. He blinked and rubbed his face with his hands as an automated voice yelled at him momentarily in Spanish. He rolled off his bed and looked around the room…if it could be called a room.

“Stand back. The portal will open in three. Two. One.”

He jumped through the orange embroidered opening on his tip toes. He only briefly remembered the boots being explained to him that made that movement so effortless. He had a feeling that was awhile ago. He had been a doctor with military history and they jumped at offering him a position. He didn’t remember much after he said yes.

 

\---

“Where is he now?” Mycroft asked.

“Meeting with him.” Sherlock said quietly as he watched the paint dry not wanting to think about the fate he had just bestowed upon another person.

“He’s going to die.”

Sherlock put the paintbrush down and turned back to look at Mycroft, “No, he’s not.”

\---

By the time John was facing JiM he felt as though the portal gun was an extension of himself. His left hand even remained curled in a fist when he wasn’t holding it, it was instinctive.

He still didn’t think he was going to live through fighting JiM. He knew he could beat him. He just didn’t think he would live through the battle.

He was OK with that.

\---

John stumbled to the ground. His hands were bleeding the worst; there were other little nicks and cuts from flying into the sky around an exploding artificial life form. His eyes open slightly and saw how overcast the sky was.

The sky.

He missed the sky.

He tried to roll over, but that seemed to require way to much effort. He just laid there and stared up at an awkward angle blissfully at the overcast sky until everything got dark.

He was only vaguely aware when metal hand wrapped around his shoulders and began pulling him back; he thought he was going to cry.

He hadn’t realized he already had been.

\---

Sherlock watched in horror.

“No.” It was barely audible.

“Run, Sherlock.” Mycroft commanded.

“I can’t.” he licked his dry lips and glanced at the open, beautiful sky.

“Yes, you can. Run, don’t look back.”

He hefted Mycroft up onto his shoulder more.

“I’m going back.”

“You really are crazy.”

Sherlock was about to protest when he remembered he was talking to an inanimate object.

“I know.”

\---

“Put the pills down Sherlock, please.”

Sherlock looked at Mycroft.

“You have to understand. I need to focus.” He said uneasily unscrewing the cap.

“Please, Sherlock.”

“I HAVE TO!” Sherlock’s outburst startled them both. Well he assumed it startled Mycroft, after all Mycroft didn’t exactly have the emotions to be startled.

“You need me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stared at the pills in his hand, “I know.” He swallowed them.

The Companion Cube didn’t say anything.

 

\---

His cyro-chamber wasn’t working. Neither was life support.

They had dragged John to a cyro-chamber.

A broken one.

“Mycroft it’s not working.”

He glanced at the grid again, “None of them are working!” he stared desperately at the grid as if will power alone could bring it back to optimal proficiency.

He had to get over the rail to the panel to save him. He had one shot.

Past the turrets and over the rail.

“Left or right, Mycroft?”

Mycroft stayed silent.

“Help me get past the turrets; do I dive to the left of right to avoid being shot?”

Silence.

\---

The bullet ripped through his leg.

 

“Mycroft…” he called out quietly. The Cube stayed silent.

\---

“Come on Shirly, daddy’s had enough now.”

“Piss off.” Sherlock said ignoring JiM’s taunts.

“Oh do tell, what could you possibly be doing in the file room?”

Sherlock picked John’s name off the spreadsheet.

He picked John to save them all.

\---

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock looked up to see Mycroft sitting where he had tumbled to when Sherlock fell over.

“Wha...”

“You’ve been out for awhile.”

“Long enough for the medication to wear off I see.” Sherlock said.

“You missed me.”

“I did no such thing.” He smiled at the Cube.

“Sherlock a question. Why did you pick John? What made him the one? A soldier that was wounded in action? An army doctor? Was he a particularly brilliant army doctor?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“He was selfless. And he wouldn’t stop.”

\---

“You can save him, you know.”

Sherlock looked at Mycroft.

“How?”

“You perfectly well know how.”

“Would you like to sleep for an unset amount of time, Mycroft?”

“I’d like legs first.”

Sherlock started pulling himself to the control panel.

“Am I doing the right thing?”

Mycroft mulled it over, “Are you?”

“I think so.”

He pressed the button.

\---

When Moran took JiM’s place as the main core, Sherlock awoke as the place slowly crumbled. His leg had scarred over from the bullet wound, that was partially due to the pod where he had been had minor healing capabilities built in. He hit his head against the glass when he sat up. He looked over to where Mycroft lay; The Companion Cube was falling apart.

“Mycroft.”

“I was so alone.” The Cube whispered.

“I’m so sorry.” He looked for the release button.

He fell out of the pod and gathered Mycroft in his arms, the dirt rubbed off on his sleeves.

“You need to get out of here, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stared at Mycroft in horror, “You’d have to come with me.”

Mycroft said nothing.

“Please.”

“Sherlock, please, I beg of you. Be sensible. Besides if you move me…I will most likely fall apart.”

Sherlock went to wipe away a tear when the entire building shook.

“GET OUT SHERLOCK!” Mycroft yelled.

Sherlock looked back at him, picked up the heart plate that had fallen off during the years of his sleep. The plate that made Mycroft something more then just weight on a button.

\---

 

John watched the door open, and was afraid that JiM had changed his mind and was going to pull him back, but an old Companion Cube was thrown out. A man got up from the wheat that spread out for miles in front of him where he had laid unnoticed.

“Mycroft!” he shouted, and hugged the Cube. John aimed his portal gun at him, having a feeling it would do nothing but hoped the man didn’t know that.

He cleared his throat to alert the stranger to his presence. He wasn’t sure if he remembered how to speak anymore. The man looked up. His eyes widened.

“You!” he smiled completely forgetting the Companion Cube, “You’re John! You’re John!” he hurried over to where John was standing, and hugged him.

John nearly dropped the gun, and it felt awkward to have human contact after so long. The man seemed to recognize this and let go, “Sorry. But do you know who you are?”

John licked his lips, but the man answered for him. “You’re John Watson! You are Doctor Watson, that’s who you are.”

The man smiled again, “I’m Sherlock” he put a hand out.

“Are you a survivor?” John finally managed, his voice sounding ridiculously foreign to him.

“I’m, well I’m thee survivor. That’s Mycroft.” He motioned to the Companion Cube, “I left you clues? I assume you got them.”

“Ratman!” John said dropping the portal gun and now tardily returning the hug.

Sherlock laughed, the first time in centuries.

End

**Author's Note:**

> I suddenly feel very worried about what people will think of this one.


End file.
